In Your Hands
by Ness Frost
Summary: The characters save each others' lives in a survival situation, without anyone else around to help out or translate. Chaos ensues.
1. Continuing Saga

**Characters:** Emil, Sigrun

 **Inspiration:** "Vinland Saga" by Leaves' Eyes

* * *

"We didn't survive by having good grades or fancy toys, Emil. We survived by knowing how to fight."

He would have liked to protest that Sweden's advanced technology had helped them _very much_ through the Rash, thanks. What came out instead was "It's helped us _some_ …"

Instead of scolding him for contradicting her as his previous captain would have done, Sigrun only grinned. "Nah. You see that?" Squinting through the dusty window to see what she was pointing at, Emil managed to make out a row of flat black and silver objects that were propped open like books… except instead of pages with words, there was a blank dark surface and a flattened keyboard below. _Televisions_ , he thought they were called. "You have anything like that in Mora?"

"No," he admitted. "Not anymore."

"Exactly." Sigrun gave a satisfied nod as if she'd just scored some indisputable point. "The Old Worlders had all this fancy tech, and it didn't help them one bit. _We're_ the ones who made it."

There wasn't much Emil could say to that. According to his parents and grandparents, his great-grandmother had lived through Year 0 and was old enough to remember; she'd had all sorts of tech that she'd held onto long after the batteries that had powered it had died, the Old World stations that sent it signals had collapsed, and the components themselves had started to wear out. After she'd died, the possessions she'd been unwilling to part with in life had been auctioned off for prices that had made Emil's head spin when his parents had told him—but it seemed that no one outside of Denmark was interested in what had once been.

"Emil! Keep up!"

"Oh! Uh, s-sure!"

It was another gloomy day in Silent Denmark, with no snow on the ground but the lowering clouds promising some form of precipitation at any moment. Emil hoped they would find what they were looking for soon, so they could get back to the tank before getting too soaked… or being trapped outside in a blizzard.

His wish was half-granted. The two of them found a bookstore _just_ as the rain started coming down in torrents, pounding on the roof so loudly he could barely hear himself think. Sigrun shone a flashlight over the shelves while Emil made an effort to wring out his sopping hair—in spite of his best efforts, he hadn't managed to get inside quite fast enough.

"Okay, pretty boy," Sigrun declared, patting him on the back. "Go ahead and pick out the good stuff. And take your time about it; we don't want to be lugging valuable books around outside until it lets up a bit."

Well, he was in no hurry to go back out into the rain, but… he didn't want to get stuck in another troll nest either. At least Sigrun hadn't left him all alone this time. With a sigh, Emil began scanning the nearest bookshelf while the unsteady light of Sigrun's bobbing flashlight brightened and dimmed in the darkness behind him.

A book on runes… well that was complete junk. Emil replaced it on the shelf (who knew, they might still get _something_ for it if there was still room in the tank after cleaning the valuable stuff out) before sliding out several more. Anything that mentioned science or medicine, or had a lot of words he couldn't understand, went into the bag.

Not even a single shelf's worth had gone into the bag before it began to bulge with the added loot, the strap cutting into his shoulder. Emil turned back to Sigrun and was just opening his mouth to say that he had as much as he could carry—

The stealthy scratching of claws on wood, the same sound he'd heard the first time he'd been alone in a dark abandoned building in the middle of the Silent World—and they were coming from right behind her. "Sigrun, look out!"

The grossling was fast—but so were Sigrun's reflexes. Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, she had lurched to the side, away from the outstretched claws that instead scored the wood of the bookshelf behind her, right where her neck had been only a split second before. Even as she dodged, her dagger had appeared in her hand, but the troll didn't continue to press its attack—or at least, not on _her_.

Emil tried to step back, to dodge as she had done, but the bag—the stupid, heavy bag—was weighing him down, throwing him off-balance, and he ended up on his backside on the floor instead. Before he could even reach his dagger, the thing was on him, claws tangled in his uniform and hot rotten breath wafting into his face…

…and even more goop showered on him as Sigrun's dagger plunged into its head. Emil lay panting on the floor as she shifted the body off of him.

"You hurt?"

"I don't think so."

"Good. Now let's _move!_ " She hauled him to his feet, books and all, and together they ran for the door and back out into the rain.

"Thanks," she said as they slogged back to camp, their nice white uniforms splattered head to toe with mud and Emil's hair now thoroughly plastered to his head. "I'd have been done for if you hadn't warned me."

"Yeah, me too," he admitted—in spite of his best efforts water was seeping into his bag; it would be a miracle if the precious books he carried weren't reduced to worthless pulp by the time they reached shelter. In all honesty, he'd thought he was being stupid again, shouting like that in the middle of a nest… but it seemed there were some things that even Sigrun couldn't do.

"We make a good team, yeah?" She patted him hard on the back, nearly sending him sprawling face-first into the mud as they finally came within sight of the tank.

"Y-yeah," Emil managed as he struggled to right himself. "I guess we do."

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm gonna try to go the "soundtrack with a single artist" route, deciding on Leaves' Eyes because of how well the music matches the atmosphere of the comic. Doesn't hurt either that the vocalist is Norwegian. Why am I even rambling about this it's not like anyone even cares.


	2. Hell to the Heavens

**Characters:** Sigrun, Mikkel

 **Inspiration:** "Hell to the Heavens" by Leaves' Eyes

* * *

When she woke that morning, the first thing she noticed was that she had a headache. A killer headache. Worse-than-the-afterparty-after-a-new-promotion headache.

Reaching up to press a hand to her head while stifling a groan, the _next_ thing she noticed was the touch of bandages amid the strands of her hair.

Okay, that was _it_.

Staggering out of the tank, Sigrun was forced to squeeze her eyes to a narrow squint and shield her face with her hand as sunlight on bright snow seemed to lance straight through her skull. She let out a groan of pain.

"S-Sigrun!?" Tuuri nearly dropped the typewriter in the snow upon realizing she was there, and Sigrun decided not to ask why she'd decided to take it outside in the first place. "Mikkel said you should be resting."

"Where is he?"

"Over there, making breakfast." Sigrun didn't stick around to hear what else Tuuri had to say about their medic's dictates or her health.

Mikkel looked up as she approached; steam curled out of the pot he was tending, carrying the aroma of whatever gunk he was cooking this time. "You should be resting."

"How about you tell me why my head's all banged up."

"That you even need to ask only reaffirms my point." Abandoning his mush for the moment, he gestured her to sit down beside him. "What's the last thing you can remember?"

"Going to bed last night, why?"

"Mm. You're going to have to be a bit more specific. How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two. And what's to be specific about? You were busy sulking because Emil filled his bag with those picture books—"

" _Comics_ , Sigrun. Cheap entertainment for Old World children." He stirred the porridge. "It seems you've only lost a day, then. Not ideal, but under the circumstances it could have been far worse."

"You going to tell me what happened?" Even as she spoke, though, another spike of pain stabbed through her head, and Sigrun pressed her hands to her temples in an effort to block out what felt like Thor himself repeatedly pounding away at the inside of her skull.

" _Later._ " Even as he spoke he had his hands on her shoulders and was guiding her back toward the tank—ordinarily, she'd have protested that she could find her own way, but that was a little hard when she was all but shutting her eyes against the light. "Try to rest. I'll take another look at your head after I've finished with breakfast."

So she went back to the bunkroom, and lay there in the dark, and tried not to focus on the faint echoes of Tuuri's cheery chatter or the scent of breakfast that was somehow managing to waft into the tank even through the closed door. Mikkel was right, she admitted grudgingly—the quiet darkness was a relief from the overload she'd experienced from going outside, and the pounding in her head was slowly abating.

She didn't know how much time passed of her simply laying on top of the bed. She might have even dozed a bit, who knows. The next time she opened her eyes, though, Mikkel had somehow appeared beside her, bowl of porridge in hand.

"Do you feel up to eating?"

"Did _you_ feel up to cooking something edible?"

"I liked your insults better before you had a head injury." Nevertheless, he set the bowl aside and gestured for her to sit up—her own bunk had just seemed too high up to be worth climbing, so she'd crashed in one of the lower ones; not like anyone else would be using them at this time of day.

"You want to tell me what happened yet?" she asked as Mikkel sat down beside her, turning so that her back was to him.

"Obviously, you've had a concussion."

"I meant _how_."

He'd finished removing the bandages from her head, and was now parting her hair to dab some sort of stinging liquid against the back of her skull. It wasn't until he'd finished with that, and started unwinding a roll of fresh bandages, that Mikkel spoke again.

"You need to avoid mental strain right now. If I tell you too much too fast—"

"That wasn't a request."

He sighed as he finished, but did not argue. "Very well. Since you seem to recall the issue with the comics…"

* * *

"You do remember the number of times I—not to mention our _employers_ —have asked you to be selective?"

"Are you still on about that?" Sigrun checked the safety one last time before slinging her rifle over her shoulder. "Look, I'm sure we'll still find _someone_ to buy them. Books are books, right?"

Mikkel pinched the bridge of his nose, reminding himself _once again_ that there were very few academics on this crew, and he needed to have patience. "The more books we get of high value, the better off we'll all be. Do you even know what it is we're looking for?"

"Nope." She hefted the bag next, slinging it over her shoulder with the ease of its empty potential. "That's _your_ job, remember?"

"And I can't _do_ my job until _after_ you and Emil have already wasted a whole day collecting worthless junk." _Have patience, have patience, have patience…_

"Oh, and you still think you can do better, do you?"

…and there went the last shreds of it. "Yes." He drew himself up to his full height, crossing his arms. "Yes, I can."

"All right." Before he could even process what was happening, something had slammed into his chest; clutching it instinctively; Mikkel realized that it was another bag. "Scout found a good haul last night anyway, I could use a big guy like you to help me carry stuff."

Spending the whole day with a bad-tempered Sigrun, knowing all the while that there was dinner to be cooked and a pile of unwashed laundry waiting back at the tank… but Mikkel couldn't exactly back down either, not after he'd all but dared her to do exactly this. Without another word, he shouldered the bag and followed her into the nearby town.

Depopulated Silent World towns were jarring at first, but after a while you got used to them. Mikkel carried the map, leaving Sigrun free to defend them if need be; they didn't speak beyond absolute necessity.

"It should be in there," Mikkel said at last, pointing to what looked like an abandoned library. Vines were beginning to creep in around the gaps in the door.

"Let me take a look." Sigrun eased it open with her knife, peering around inside for long minutes before she gestured him forward.

"Okay, Mr. Brainiac." She made a sweeping gesture at the shelves all around them, most of which were filled floor to ceiling with beautiful, intact books. "Pick out the ones that are worth money."

Ignoring the barb in her statement, still determined not to give her the satisfaction of getting under his skin, Mikkel moved to the nearest bookshelf and looked it over with a critical eye.

Looked like a bunch of magic hoo-ha. Next shelf. Now _this_ one was a find; there seemed to be a fair number of works dedicated to medicine, and Mikkel took his time picking out the ones most likely to have information they didn't already know. Sigrun, who was leaning against another shelf with her arms crossed, let out a yawn.

"If I'm boring you that much, you could try helping out a bit."

"This is _your_ job, remember? And just saying, finding books that are worth more won't do us much good if we take twice as long to get them."

Much as he hated to admit it, she did have a point. He passed the bag that he'd filled off to her before picking up the next empty one.

By the time they had finished, the shadows had lengthened and the horizon was turning a distinct shade of orange: they would get no more salvaging done today. Both hefted their loads and began the long, tedious walk back to camp.

"Pick up the pace," Sigrun said, seemingly out of nowhere.

"What?"

"We've had warm weather all day. Trolls are going to start coming out soon."

A few hasty strides brought him forward to her side. "I thought that Lalli said this town was safe!"

"During the day, maybe. But I don't want to be around to find out what starts crawling out of those holes once the sun goes down."

 _Kastrup. There were soldiers who'd been caught behind enemy lines at night, those too badly hurt to limp back to base, left behind by panicking comrades. Come nightfall, their pleas for help distorted to curdling screams of terror—_

"I said pick up the pace, not stop and admire the scenery!"

Mikkel didn't reply, _couldn't_ reply. Instead, he did the only thing he could do, shook off the cobwebs of the past, and once more lengthened his stride to keep pace with his captain. "Had you told me about this earlier—"

"If _you_ hadn't wasted so much time browsing each and every book—"

"Maybe if you'd _helped_ a little—"

Their argument abruptly came to a sudden, screeching halt—and so did they. There on the road in front of them was a shadow. A very deformed-looking shadow. A do-not-want-to-meet-this-thing-down-a-dark-alley sort of shadow.

"Sigrun—"

"Troll." The bag slipped from her shoulder to the ground as she drew her dagger in one smooth motion. "Stay where you are, and for the love of Thor don't try to swing anything at it."

"Sigrun, that thing's twice as big as—"

He couldn't finish. Already it was surging down the road at them, all flailing limbs and red eyes and razor claws and teeth.

Mikkel wasn't armed. He was weighted down with books. When it swung straight at him, he tried to move, but wasn't fast enough. The only reason it didn't take his head clean off was that Sigrun leaped in front of him first, dagger shearing straight through the limb that had been flying at his face.

He didn't see much of what happened over the next several minutes. It was too dark, and the combatants were moving too fast. All he knew was that there was a death knell, and most of the shadowy mass before him stopped moving—all, that is, except for the small part that detached itself from the rest and stood.

"Sigrun?"

"Don't worry, it's dead." Nevertheless as she made her way back over to him something in the way she was moving seemed… _off_.

"Are _you_ okay?"

"Fine." She shoved her dagger back into its sheath.

By this point Mikkel had managed to locate his flashlight, and trained its beam on her. He was alarmed to note her unbalanced stance and the staggering confusion in her gait. "I don't think that you are."

"Still standing, aren't I?"

"You're bleeding," he pointed out, as calmly as he was able.

"This?" She looked down at her uniform, which was splattered with troll gunk. "Not mine."

"But this is." He'd finally gotten close enough to take a good look, and an unpleasant jolt went through him at the sight of a clot of red on her head that wasn't her hair. When he placed a hand experimentally against the back of her head, the palm of his glove came away red.

"You're _not_ fine," he said more firmly even as panic welled within him. "Come on… the tank isn't that far away…"

The books lay forgotten in the middle of the road.

* * *

"So that's it, eh?"

"No. But let's take a break now anyway. I'll tell you the rest after you've eaten and rested some more."

The porridge was long cold, but she managed enough of it to satisfy her growling stomach. Mikkel took the bowl away with a satisfied nod as Sigrun stretched out on the bunk once more.

She dreamed.

It wasn't hard to dream when one was forced to spend the entire day in bed. When Sigrun dreamed, though, it was usually of either the bizarrely absurd, or a rehash of events she'd rather not live through again. This time was different.

She awoke, covered in sweat, with a few shattered, disjointed images in her head that she could not piece together: the ground shaking before splitting open to swallow her whole; a horrible massive wolf pacing under the full moon; the bleached white bones of a giant skeleton hand curling around her torso. Her stomach clenched, and Sigrun quickly rolled onto her side, put her head over the edge of the bed, and retched; bile crawled up her throat to spill onto the floorboards.

After the heaving had subsided she sat back, slowly, and raised a trembling hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead. The fingers of her other hand were curled in an iron grip around the hilt of her dagger; she couldn't even remember drawing it.

What time was it? Hand still shaking a bit, she shoved her dagger back into its sheath before pushing her way slowly out of bed. The outside light, when she opened the door, was still enough to see by but no longer blinding—sunset was nearly upon them. Ignoring the others' chatter, Sigrun stooped, scooped up a handful of fresh snow, and shoved it into her mouth. The rush of cold water was a welcome relief.

Thankfully, the first person to notice her was the one she actually _wanted_ to see, at least this time: Mikkel, coming around the side of the tank, apron on and a pile of dirty dishes in his arms.

She spat. "How long's it been?"

"You slept through most of the day. I did check on you at lunchtime," he added, setting the used bowls gently into the washbasin, "but I thought it more important for you to get uninterrupted rest."

Sigrun would have liked to dispute his use of the word "rest" for what her sleep had been like, but that was the sort of confession a commanding officer simply didn't make to one of her subordinates unprompted. Besides, it seemed he had already seen the evidence for himself: he had paused at the door to the bunkroom, and though his expression didn't change it was clear that he _had_ noticed.

"I take it you don't want dinner."

"No," she agreed. "Probably not."

They sat in the office this time. Mikkel had her tilt her head back so he could peer into her eyes, his face an unreadable mask.

"Look, how serious is this?"

"Serious enough that you really do need to listen to me this time, and _take it easy_. Head injuries are not a laughing matter." He released her chin, taking a moment to lean his elbow against the desk while he looked over the rest of her face. "You didn't sleep well." It wasn't a question.

"Think I dreamed about Ragnarok," she admitted. It was an odd thing to say to a self-professed heathen, but surely even Mikkel could understand the nature of nightmares.

His reaction was not what she had expected: he started, an expression of recognition flitting across his features for the briefest moment before being hastily suppressed—but Sigrun had still seen.

"Okay Mikkel. Spill."

"What do you mean?"

"The rest of it. What _else_ happened last night?"

He sighed. "We might have both said a few stupid things…"

* * *

"Stop—stop."

He stopped, though he retained his firm grip on Sigrun's elbow to support her; she was still off-balance, swaying where she stood.

"If you have to sit down…"

"Just a few minutes." She sank to the ground and Mikkel followed suit, positioning himself slightly behind her so he could take another look at her wound. The bleeding had mostly stopped by this point, the flow of red congealing into dark clots that tangled in her hair, but it still needed to be cleaned and dressed and he wouldn't have the supplies for that until they made it back to camp.

"You could have been killed back there." He spoke to pass the time, to keep Sigrun awake… mostly, though, Mikkel talked because there was something he needed to know, but was afraid to ask outright.

"I could get killed any day." She shifted her weight with a shrug, though she was now pressing a hand to her forehead as if trying to stave off dizziness or pain. "That's just part of the job. And hey, if I die out here, at least I'll die well."

"So you can make it _Valhalla?_ " The bitterness that crept into Mikkel's voice surprised even him. "Throwing your life away to please your gods?"

Her only response was a laugh—a momentary chuckle that was quickly cut short with a hiss of pain, and a hand pressed harder into her forehead. "You really don't get the gods, do you?"

Somehow, the weariness in her voice didn't register—only her brief laughter. Mikkel bristled. "I understand enough. I see your _benevolent deities_ with the blood of good men and women on their hands, soldiers who threw their lives away for nothing because they were promised some sort of _paradise_ in return…"

"Soldiers who are willing to make sacrifices to _protect our people_ , so that others can live. You think that that's not worthy of reward? If you want to throw your life away pointlessly, any coward can find a rope or a blade. But just because I _might_ not make it back, that doesn't mean I don't intend to."

"Sure doesn't seem that way, when you're so eager to shield other people with your own body."

"What, the civvie? That hurt me a lot less than it would've hurt him."

"And tonight?"

She turned around to give him a _very_ skeptical look. "You _can_ patch me up if I'm hurt, right? Not a whole lot I can do for you if _you're_ the one who gets ripped open."

"I suppose that's true." He looked down the darkened road. "Speaking of which, we need to get moving."

"Agreed."

"Can you walk?"

"Maybe." She leaned heavily on his shoulder as she stood, but she still stood. "If I can't, there's another good reason for keeping you healthy."

"Mm." At least she considered him useful for _something_. "I'll still need you to stay awake until we get there. Can you do that?"

"Keep talking and I might."

Even though he was keeping his voice down to avoid attracting trouble, he still managed to maintain a steady stream of dialogue until they reached a place of warmth and shelter, where he could treat her wound properly so she could live to fight another day.

* * *

 **A/N:** Confusion is a very common symptom of concussions. So if Sigrun seems out of it at some points, that's why.


End file.
